“Donna Henes is the High Preistess of Inter-Active Art.” —Lucy Lippard
“Unofficial Commissioner of Public Spirit of NYC.” —The New Yorker
“Part performance artist, part witch, part social director for planet earth.” —Village Voice
“For 35 years Ms. Henes has been putting city folk in touch with Mother Earth.” —New York Times
“Henes is the real deal—prepare to leave with a newfound appreciation for the occult.” —Time Out New York
Donna Henes is an internationally acclaimed urban shaman, spiritual teacher, popular speaker, and award-winning writer specializing in multicultural ritual celebrations of the cycles of the seasons and the seasons of our lives. Her main goal is to reconnect urban populations with the wondrous workings of the natural world in order to protect and heal the planet. Her joyful celebrations of celestial events have introduced ancient traditional rituals and contemporary ceremonies to millions of people in more than 100 cities for more than forty years. Since 2007 she has been the Grand Spirit Marshall of the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade, along with her Blessing Band. She holds two New York City Mayoral Citations. One from Ed Koch for designing the New York City Olympic Tickertape Parade; and the other from David Dinkins for her work as Shaman in the Streets. In 1982, she composed and recorded at her Winter Solstice Ceremony the first and only satellite peace message in space: “chants for peace * chance for peace.” She has been a recipient of two fellowships each from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as numerous project grants from municipalities, corporations and foundations.
She is the author of five books: the Amazon.com best-selling The Queen of My Self: Stepping into Sovereignty in Midlife, The Moon Watcher’s Companion, Celestially Auspicious Occasions™: Seasons, Cycles, and Celebrations, and Dressing Our Wounds In Warm Clothes, Bless This House, as well as the CD, Reverence To Her: Mythology, the Matriarchy, & Me and the acclaimed quarterly journal, Always in Season: Living in Sync with the Cycles. She currently writes columns for The Huffington Post, Beliefnet and UPI Religion and Spirituality Forum, and publishes a monthly Ezine, The Queen’s Chronicles. Her writings for adults and children have been syndicated in publications throughout the United States and Canada and globally via the internet. She served as a children’s book award judge for the United Nations Jane Addams Peace Association from 1980-1988.
A respected ritual expert, she serves as a consultant for the television and film industry. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The New Yorker, USA Today, The Daily Beast, Martha Stewart Living, Japanese Vogue, Crain’s New York Business, Variety, The Village Voice, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, and more than 300 radio and television programs in the U.S., Europe, and Japan. Her rituals have been most recently seen on Keepers. In addition to teaching and lecturing worldwide, Mama Donna, as she is affectionately called, maintains a ceremonial center, spirit shop, ritual practice, and spiritual consultancy where she works with individuals, groups, institutions, municipalities and corporations to create meaningful ceremonies for every imaginable occasion.